Second Lewandowsky conspiracy theory paper delinked from journal

I’ve been waiting to get some confirmation on this since yesterday , and now that I have it, I can state that the link to the second Lew paper Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation By Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook of “Sceptical Science” has been disconnected from normal public access at the abstract. The abstract remains, but the paper and supplementary info links on the abstract page have been taken out.

Retraction Watch writes:

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That study was published in Frontiers in Personality Science and Individual Differences. But yesterday, that paper — or at least everything but the abstract – disappeared. It turns out this is the second time that’s happened. The paper was first removed on February 6, just days after it was accepted and published, because of complaints from a blogger named Jeff Condon, and since reposted — at least until yesterday.

We asked journal editor Brian Little for some details. Little — whom, we should note, went out of his way to respond to us quickly, despite the impending Easter holiday and a self-imposed “sequester” so that he can finish writing a book — told us:

The article was removed on February 6th because of a complaint about a factual error. We did due diligence, contacted the authors, had it corrected and it was put up again.

Little said he was told yesterday by the Frontiers editorial office that the study had been taken down again, but didn’t know why. There’s a conference call scheduled for just after the Easter break, he said

to find out why it was taken down and to seek a fair and timely resolution.

It doesn’t seem that Frontiers has a policy for taking down articles. When Paul Matthews, of the University of Nottingham, asked the editorial office what had happened the first time the paper was removed, he was told:

Thank you for your message. Please allow me to clarify that the PDF version of the manuscript has been temporarily removed for the purpose of further typesetting. The manuscript is currently in production stage and the full manuscript will be published in the coming weeks. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or concerns.

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Hmmm. I doubt seriously they need a conference call for “typesetting”. I wonder if they’ll be able to salvage it from the GIGO macerator this time? Since it was mostly about smearing climate skeptics, and not any actual science, I hope that the people in charge will go with integrity, rather than continue with this ginned up collection of emotional screeds from Lewandowsky and Cook.

UPDATE: My title and original first paragraph wasn’t fully accurate regarding links. While the paper PDF still exists on the Frontiers in Personality Science website, it has been delinked from the abstract page. Title and first paragraph have been edited for clarity within a few minutes of initial publication. – Anthony

UPDATE2: Geoff Chambers writes in comments:

Barry Woods and I both wrote to the editors independently asking for the article to be retracted. When I didn’t get a reply, I posted the letter on their site, and here

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are taking this email very seriously and will temporarily remove the article while we investigate your claims. Please feel free to forward us any further information that will assist us with our investigation”.

Its a conspiracy…you and your fellow puppet-masters of the oil-slave army MADE them take it down, If it doesnt go up again CookLew will be running around screaming this fact to anyone who they can trick into not simply ignoring them.

Barry Woods and I both wrote to the editors independently asking for the article to be retracted. When I didn’t get a reply, I posted the letter on their site, and herehttp://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/lews-talk-costs-libels/
The editorial assistant wrote to me yesterday, saying:
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are taking this email very seriously and will temporarily remove the article while we investigate your claims. Please feel free to forward us any further information that will assist us with our investigation”.

This kind of activity comes under the heading of “Academic Malpractice” and/or “Behaviour likely to bring the University into Disrepute”.
The latter is a sacking offence.
A letter to the (Lewandowsky’s) University Vice Chancellor is in order.

The improvement in cycle time on topical quality control is worthy of a GE six sigma black belt. Hereby duly awarded to this team by a former Motorola practioner. Now, take down the rest of CAGW poor quality science. Which is probably the whole shebang.
Remember that poor quality product should be organically recycled at the factory. Lewandowsky’s stuff can be placed into a traditional Japanese honeypot, composted, and then used to fertilize the next crop of Australian science. Metaphorically speaking…

Do you even know what that journal is? Not to entirely slam them, but I’ve been contacted to be an editor for a ‘topic’ for them. I’ve not looked into it extensively, but it’s not a typical journal. I think it’s a place where cronies could very easily slide things in. Here’s a description from their site:
“…the unique peer-review at Frontiers, with an interactive forum for transparent and real-time discussions between authors and reviewers, is key in certifying the highest quality publications and leading to high citations.
The Frontiers philosophy is that all research that is scientifically sound deserves to be published, removing all bias and subjective editorial criteria, and holding reviewers responsible for their reviews.”http://www.frontiersin.org/news/Frontiers_Impact_Factors_2011/135

Typesetting error?
The most obvious error was being foolish enough to ever set this craven effort at pathologising scepticism in type at all, especially in the age of the Internet. Sceptics will never forgive and the internet will never forget.

When this started I tried to see the best in Lewandowsky, I give him the benefit of the doubt. So, I wrote to him explaining that he was mistaken about us sceptics.
He didn’t even reply. I can only conclude that he has not the slightest interest in “seeing the other side” or academic balance.
That is about all I want to say about the kind of person he is.

I’ve had a handful of exchanges with Barry Woods on twitter about this. His admirable position is that he will try to sort it out with the journal, and in that he is a far more forgiving man than I. If I had been so abused I’d have contacted the University’s ethics committee in the first instance and wouldn’t have even bothered with the journal.

Thanks Matt E’
When they say:
“removing all bias and subjective editorial criteria”
clearly thats a defensive statement. Ie, they are uneasily aware …haha, deniers of the fact, that what they DO is exactly what they say it is their policy not to do.

The actual temperature trends to date are NOT meeting the theory’s predictions.
In fact, most of the predictions are very far off so far (not all but most of them, including the most important ones).
Lewandowsky says we must be nuts for even testing out that fact. How twisted can a person be? I mean checking predictions with observations/results. No scientist does that and no field of science condones that.
This is what he is saying.

Something I’ve learned from a careful reading of the text (others can look at the statistics) is that Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts are the real targets of the paper. . . .
“As noted earlier, this group of people has a demonstrable impact on society, and understanding their motivations and reasoning is therefore of importance”. . . .
Popular climate blogs can register upward of 700,000 monthly visitors, a self-selected audience that is by definition highly engaged in the increasingly polarized climate debate. . . .”
. . .
Steve is named, not for anything he’s said, but for the fact of having triggered investigations, and WattsUpWithThat is hinted at, but not named.

Congratulations Anthony for running this highly influential climate blog which cannot be named.

Re Bill Ellis…Lewand..whatever the stupid pillocks dumbass name is….(about time he Anglicised it if hes pretending to be Australian) is obviously cut from the same cloth as the Soviet “psychiatrists” who “treated” dissidents bin the USSR.

Can you all stop picking on Stephen, You are all soooo! mean. He is my favourite writer on the ABC – The Drum. His articles are rippers with so many good laughs that it is hard to get through them. His assumptions, being the stand points of fools, delivers in bucket loads.
So stop this, it is very hurtful, he may take his bucket and spade and never play in the ABC sand pit again…

Incidentally, in the aftermath of the long drawn out and seemingly unquenchable PR disaster that climategate keeps turning out to be for UEA, there are rumours of them working hard on repairing their academic credibility. Given the alarums and excursions of the last few years, big donors have been noticeably gun-shy of the place. They’re sprucing up their academic credentials by trying to recruit some scholastic heavy hitters like Gergis, Marcott, Shakun and Lewandowsky. Apparently the University of Western Australia are actually very keen to let UEA have the advantage of the latter’s full-time services, and as quickly as humanly possible. It’s all going extremely well, but I do think them having to break the fait accompli to Lew will be the tricky bit.http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/climategate-3-the-goon-squad-and-going-nuclear/
Pointman

UPDATE: My title and original first paragraph wasn’t fully accurate regarding links. While the paper PDF still exists on the Frontiers in Personality Science website, it has been delinked from the abstract page.

That was how they did it last time the paper was “taken down” as well – simply remove the link from the Abstract site. For all practical purposes this does “take down” the paper (while leaving abstract intact – something addressed in part at Retraction Watch ) unless you are given or for some reason know the PDF file web link.
I suspect the journal web tech just doesn’t see it important to remove the link in light of above.

Here in the UK we have a name for ‘important’ studies such as the Cook-Lewandowsky paper,
It’s called “Bollocks”.
In fact with such impressive debaters and ‘scientists’ such as Cook and Lewandowsky on their side perhaps Hayhoe may need to increase the 49 warmists to 1 sceptic ratio.

@Wamron, its coming.
The farce is imploding faster each day, each honest inquiry shines light where the team never expected light to fall.
However these useful idiots and grant graspers are mere minions, the real targets of my wrath are the high priced help inside my government.
Watchdogs, compulsory protection, here to protect the public treasure.
If they were watchdogs, they are rabid.

Rud Istvan says: The improvement in cycle time on topical quality control is worthy of a GE six sigma black belt….Now, take down the rest of CAGW poor quality science. Which is probably the whole shebang.

Steve McIntyre began his auditing on the science behind the IPCC assessments with the 3rd Assessment. And since then every attempt to scientifically promote AGW, and to scientifically denigrate the opposition, has been rapidly subject to thorough online audits. However, IMO the shoddiness and deception began not with 3rd assessment and nor with the1st Assessment. It began following the establishment of the FCCC with the assessment developed under its enormous political shadow, that is, with the 2nd Assessment.
This Assessment leans heavily on dubious CO2+Sulphate model results by Mitchell that allowed modellers to save face on the fact that real-world based GMT was not keeping up with the warming in their models. It also included lately inserted ‘fingerprint’ results of Santer. And it also included the obscuring of damaging sceptical results by Barnett. While Michaels and Singer were gallant as lonely challengers at the time, some issues were never fully resolved, cross checked…audited. Therefore, I do often wonder whether folks with capacity to do so would be interested in auditing this work so as to clearly establish the extent to which the science behind the treaty talks had been corrupted from the beginning.

Personally, I am spewing (as we say in Australia) that this paper might not be published.
I am listed in the Table of Honour which identifies persons suffering from “conspiracy ideation”, along with such luminaries as Steve McIntyre and Anthony. I am even referenced in the main text.
Not only will my brush with fame likely never occur again (and I am not worthy, but very proud) – publication of this silly paper is a superb public demonstration of exactly the point he was not trying to make.

Dr. Lew and Cook appear unable to perceive how a blatant attack paper like this damages their side of the debate by polarizing it into extremes. The landscape can be thought of as a relatively small group of skeptics, a relatively small group of warmists and a large ‘middle’ of people who are undecided. The real battle is to win over this undecided middle. The bulk of these folks started out in the late 90s willing to go along with the warmists and their appearance of consensus. The skeptics have now been able to win over a portion of the middle and pull much of the rest back into “undecided” from leaning toward the warmists. The largest assistance to the skeptics has not been imaginary payouts from big oil, it’s been over-reaching by the warmists.
I have a number of friends who are in this middle group. We have some good discussions and they don’t always agree with my skeptical viewpoint. This paper had a powerful impact on my friends. They saw it as obvious ad hom, immediately drawing the soviet Lysenkoism parallel themselves. Lew and Cook trying to paint those who disagree with them as literally crazy is backfiring with the undecided middle. Of course, Lew and Cook don’t perceive this because they are surrounded by an echo chamber of other extreme warmists shouting “atta-boys”. They remain tone deaf to how the only audience that really matters sees this!
This kind of wild over-reach is also driving a wedge into the ranks of the warmist side. The extreme warmists are forcing their less extreme warmist allies to realize there are important differences within the warmist side. Has anyone else noticed the number of warmist scientists expressing small but meaningful public reservations and caveats about the warmist case in the last six months? They are starting to realize that history may not be on their side. As the extremists continue to mount ever more desperate (and distasteful) last stands, their allies are edging ever closer to the exits. Everyone remembers the lessons of plate tectonics and ulcers/bacteria. No one wants to be recorded by history as one of the religiously driven zealots who held an untenable position to the bitter end. The savvy, long-term players are hedging by putting some “prudently cautionary” sound-bites on the record, just in case. Watch this strategic hedging turn into a rush for the exits as the climate continues to not cooperate over the next 18 months.

Smarmy, slimy John Cook of SkS has also “doubled down” on his Twitter smears:
Cook’s latest SkS tweet [emphasis added]
John Cook
‏@skepticscience
The Lewandowsky moon landing paper that started all the climate denier conspiracy theories is now published http://bit.ly/XiuA8U

I had to read this several times–actually he’s right–Lewandowsky did start the denier conspiracy theories rhetoric. That is sooo funny. I doubt that he knew what he was writing!

Wamron says: March 28, 2013 at 5:37 pm
Re Bill Ellis…Lewand..whatever the stupid pillocks dumbass name is….(about time he Anglicised it if hes pretending to be Australian) is obviously cut from the same cloth as the Soviet “psychiatrists” who “treated” dissidents bin the USSR.
————————————
Well he’s actually an American … how smart were they in shipping him out and how dumb were we to accept a pillock like him ? … I ask you with tears in my eyes, we don’t need him, we already have enough of our own homegrown idiots … Cook, Flannery, Dr Karl, etc.

@ Mark says: March 28, 2013 at 10:12 pm
I think the time-frame of 18 months is right. At that point, it is unlikely to be possible for anyone to rationally assert a case for CAGW beyond claiming it as a possibility on a par with any idle speculation about anything. This is also long enough for, as you say, the more cunning or prudent to hedge their bets.
At that point this will be purely structural and political. What happens with this is not a matter for science as such, although it will of course be important for real scientists to be increasingly vocal. If for no other reason than to demonstrate (if possible) that science is not debased in entirety.
I would qualify your categorization of “extremists”. It is difficult to be more extreme than James “oceans will boil” Hansen, yet he is also possessed of the rat cunning required to ameliorate exposure as can be seen recently.
Rather, the extremists you refer to are the pack followers who, as you say, derive their sense of reality from their immediate surrounds and have all the confidence of ignorance about the wider realities to which they remain effectively oblivious. They think they are part of the ascendant coterie and that this strength must prevail.
So they will become more patently absurd to objective outsiders.

John Cook@skepticscience
The Lewandowsky moon landing paper that started all the climate denier conspiracy theories is now published.
Classic!!!!
A clear statement of responsibility. Nice to see. (even though I assume it was an inadvertent admission).

Wamron says: “Kon Dealer………Is this then potentially a lower magnitude version of the Parncutt incident?”
No, I believe it is higher magnitude. Parncutt was expressing an “opinion”, however distasteful.
Lewandowsky appears to have committed academic fraud and compounded this fraud by lying in public to defend his position.

@ Day By Day says: March 28, 2013 at 10:30 pm
The problem with twitter is the same as with 30 second sound bytes. They convey little and are often either too ambiguous or wrong. But we have a whole generation of kids that can only communicate in staccato tweets.

“When this started I tried to see the best in Lewandowsky, I give him the benefit of the doubt. So, I wrote to him explaining that he was mistaken about us sceptics.
“He didn’t even reply. I can only conclude that he has not the slightest interest in “seeing the other side” or academic balance.”

He is, as I read in another thread, what someone called, a Diode. After 50 years in electronics, I can see the analogy perfectly. It’s a very good name and I shall make more use of it when I come against these people with one-way communication skills.

Everyone should know than neither Cook or Lewandowsky are scientists. They are psychologists who appear to have psychological problems as they clearly are deluded about logic.Maybe they see Freud’s phallic symbol as a bete noire (circumflex over the first e)

My thoughts on the matter. (rough and ready, Easter hols, don’t care)http://unsettledclimate.org/2013/03/29/the-perils-of-science-by-press-release-to-get-a-headline-with-data-and-publication-following-months-later/
and to be very, very clear, I think the journals have been blindsided. science assumes the actors act in good faith, and every science has the right to be wrong. Show me a scientist who has never been wrong, and that will be somebody who hasn’t learn’t very much (even amongst the most brilliant)
I would like to help the journals and universities to sort the mess out. I have not made a formal complaint, beyond raising my concerns asking for info, and asking it be looked at. (though that may be being treated as a complaint) To be clear, the absolute majority of scientists act in good faith, of that I’m sure.

Day By Day wrote: John Cook of SkS has also “doubled down” on his Twitter smears: The Lewandowsky moon landing paper that started all the climate denier conspiracy theories is now published http://bit.ly/XiuA8UI had to read this several times–actually he’s right–Lewandowsky did start the denier conspiracy theories rhetoric.

A point of order: Neither John Cook nor Stephen Lewandowski started the “climate deniers = conspiracy theorists” theory, even in published “scientific” literature. Obama’s leftist tzar buddy Cass Sundstein published a similar paper over 5 years ago. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585

I have always felt that the only thing more difficult to objectively, scientifically predict than the weather (and/or “climate,”) is a human. Therefore a another science in grave danger of being exploited by pseudoscience, (as Climate Science has been,) is psychology.
The antics of Lewandowsky demonstrate this.
At times psychologists wield too much power, especially when they are able to diagnose someone of an ailment, and the person is smeared in a way that ruins them. The person is not guilty of any crime, but is accused of having the “potential” of someday committing a crime. For example, if a surgeon was called “homicidal” you wouldn’t much want to be operated on, by him.
Nearly 20 years ago I became aware of a mother and father whose daughter had gone to a psychologist, and had somehow progressed from stating her parent’s rebukes, discipline, and what-have-you felt like “abuse,” to having a “recovered memory” of actual abuse. The parents then had to deal with all sorts of trouble, for they were deemed guilty of a crime which never in fact occurred.
I was curious about what ever happened to them, and a brief search of the web located “The False Memory Foundation.” The mother, Pamela Freyd, has now spent 20 years battling Lewandowsky-like logic. The site’s archives make interesting reading, for those inclined to bear witness to the battle between science and pseudoscience. Their website is:http://www.fmsfonline.org/

‘Thank you for your message. Please allow me to clarify that the PDF version of the manuscript has been temporarily removed for the purpose of further typesetting.’
Typesetting? Typesetting? What? What the hell are they talking about? What, are they having problems with the typesetter’s union? Hello, that went away with the dawn of computer graphics. Or, are they having problems with their graphic design program? Didn’t they buy the right font? Is their character count wrong? Are they commercial artists? Graphic designers? Or, did that ‘scientific (AGW proponents have forced me to develop low standards for that term) paper’ accidentally find itself over in their art department and there’s no artists there right now? Typesetting? I’m sorry, but that’s the most ridiculous, sniveling, meal-mouthed excuse I’ve ever heard.

Caleb says:
March 29, 2013 at 8:17 am I have always felt that the only thing more difficult to objectively, scientifically predict than the weather (and/or “climate,”) is a human. Therefore a another science in grave danger of being exploited by pseudoscience, (as Climate Science has been,) is psychology.
The antics of Lewandowsky demonstrate this.
At times psychologists wield too much power, especially when they are able to diagnose someone of an ailment, and the person is smeared in a way that ruins them.
Yes Caleb, I remember the case too and was very satisfied to see that in the end that pseudoscience was being called what it is. Such abuse is terrible. Thank you for posting the link.
Lew’s work is similar and it is really worth to read through the retracters from your link to understand how deluded and dangerous such pseudoscientists are, how much harm did they do to the very persons they “wanted to help”:http://www.fmsfonline.org/retract1.html
Bob, Missoula says:
March 29, 2013 at 9:00 amDon’t the reviewers bear any responsibility for this debacle?
Which reviewers? I understood the reviewers names were changed 3 times post publication… hm…could have had something to do with the fact they didn’t want to be responsible for it…

Fred–I understand and agree with the first two sentences– the third doesn’t make sense. Why would you be disapppointed in WUWT? The one that explores competing theories? And granted, pokes fun at the ones who started the problems in Climate Science, who could resist? Or did you forget the “sarc”?

ferdberple says: Intolerance of competing theories is what has led to the problems in Climate Science. It is the behavior one expects of Real Climate. I am disappointed in WUWT.

@Tom J –
Yeah, I caught that, too. Typesetting, in this day and age. Maybe he meant buggy whip making…LOL
“Further typesetting” today means changing text. It simply cannot mean anything else. It is a euphemism for “Oops! We got some errors, and we ain’t a’gonna tell anyone what they are until we’ve gone over the darned thing and discussed it with our lawyers, too. We don’t want to change it and then find out we have to change it again. Now THAT would be embarrassing!”
Steve Garcia

Surprised no one else has commented on this yet:
“the unique peer-review at Frontiers, with an interactive forum for transparent and real-time discussions between authors and reviewers”
WOW! The reviewers aren’t anonymous to the author? Yeah, I’d say that sounds unique. And an invitation for the author to lean on the reviewers. Can you imagine Michael Mann and his discussions with his reviewers?
Unbelievable.
Steve Garcia
p.s. A funny came to me while reading here: Lewandowski and much of the warmists seem to be members of the newest branch of science – Speculatology.* Otherwised known as Datalessology or Outofyerbuttology. The science of making things up. The first professor emeritus would be Theboywho Criedwolf (prof. emer.), followed by Phil Jones (LmD). . . . /snarc
* Not to be confused with Scatology, regardless of similarities.
Steve Garcia

@ feet2thefire says: March 29, 2013 at 11:56 pm
“…the newest branch of science – Speculatology.* Otherwised known as Datalessology or Outofyerbuttology. The science of making things up. The first professor emeritus would be Theboywho Criedwolf (prof. emer.), followed by Phil Jones (LmD). . . . /snarc”
You got this wrong in only one detail: “/snarc”.
And don’t forget that anything can now be classified as science.The only principle being that gravitas is required by the practitioner in order to extract advantage. Perhaps Conmanatology.

Re Mark:
“I have a number of friends who are in this middle group. We have some good discussions and they don’t always agree with my skeptical viewpoint.”
Someone used to say to me: “I wish you weren’t so American about it”.I would have thought CAGW is American, surely, most modern global memes seem to have originated in California.
Anyway, to take up your observations that most people are in a 90% middle group, its worth noting that probably 90% of that middle group never actually discuss or think about climate change….they are just too busy with trying to live. So you can be even more specific in targeting your audience. Its the maybe 10% of the undecided 90% who when online look at climate discussions.
I would expand also on the implication of what you are saying. That is that such people are not influenced by science or facts. They are influenced by certain cultural buttons being pushed. the Left are usually good at that. Its why they seek to try to influence perceptions by using “denier” or the Moon landing conspiracists. But its really cack-handed. Lewandowsky is simply unintelligent. Hes bad at Chess-like thinking. Any undecided or doubting on CAGW is unlikely to be a Moon landing doubter.They are so few in number. So the majority of middle-grounders, when hearing that CAGW asshats are saying they are Moon landing doubters will feel misrepresented and traduced. Thereby alienated from the “believers”.

Let’s just list all excuses now prevalent in AGW publishing for their convenience.
typsetting issue
manuscript was lost in the mail
email glitch
reference section error (Mann?)
Minor statistical error
The old standby: archive does not exist
Anything related to dog ate original

@ Wamron says: March 30, 2013 at 6:31 am
I think it is obviously true what you say about the great majority of people being too busy with their own concerns to personally evaluate this. It must necessarily be the case across a whole range of issues.There is no option but to “trust”.
As such it is unreasonable to expect people to personally decide on the substance of any scientific proposition, and to come to an independent position “influenced by science”. It is only necessary to look at this issue and the exchanges on this site to see that even those who take an active interest cannot agree what “the science” is. Rather than being influenced by science directly, virtually everyone must trust to being influenced by scientists themselves, and by those entrusted with the responsibility to interpret that and if needed apply as policy. This is true of scientists themselves in areas outside their expertise. It is unavoidable.
If the processes that identify legitimate conclusions within science itself, and the capacities of those responsible for interpreting these and applying them are corrupted, as they are in this case, the fault lies with those bodies and people. Those outside this cannot be accused of indifference, ignorance, or mindlessness. They are not to blame.
As to facts of an empirical nature, if there are two or more claims that contradict each other, as there are here, people can only decide between them if the basis for them is accessible. This is rarely the case in any specialist field whether it is science or economics.
It is only recently in “climate” that the basis for claims of empirical fact are becoming accessible. And that goes for the people in the field itself.
What 99% of people are left with – which includes many who visit this site – is the ability to judge the character of the active participants based on observable honesty in methodology and argument or not, inconsistencies, evasion, manipulation, and previously established reputation.
As you rightly say, there are those in profusion who seek to manipulate by “pushing buttons”.
This should not be seen as evidence that those manipulated are by definition unnaturally credulous, although it is certainly the case that people by, in effect, tribal identification, or fixed conceptions based on what is convenient for them, are fertile ground, and that when any proposition comes from a quarter they identify with on the basis of self-interest, they will assume this is in their interest and be inclined to “think” accordingly.
But ultimately, if the promoters of any scheme or mindset are undeniably fraudulent in their manner of dealing with others, this will tell. Where this fraudulence intrudes into a realm that is easily grasped by anyone, as is the case here, and it is seen, they are done.
The apprehension of this core fact, which reduces any other claimed fact to irrelevancy, is what people have always relied on. So the elevation of those like Lewandowsky into visibility, where they can be shown for what they are to all, is all that ultimately counts.

Re JC.
Broadly I agree with you but theres one thing I disagree about porofoundly and which has potentially great significance.
The idea that we must all trust the conclusions of specialists in other fields is true in many spheres of activity (sport for example) but in regard to science it is fundamentally untrue.
The strength of science and its unique transparency rests on three very simple principles:
1) Correlation is not evidence of causation.
2) The correctness of a theory is established by the accuracy of predictions set out in a hypothesis.
3) The grounds for disproof of the theory must also be esatblished prior to the occasioning of the results of prediction, the null hypothesis.
These are the ONLY things ANYONE need EVER know about science to judge whether something is scientifically sound or just pseudo-science.
AGW has been garbage in my eyes for twenty years or more because: it rests entirely on correlations and it offers no null hypothesis and therefore is unfalsifyable. Now of course we have The resounding fact that its predictions are completely wrong.
Nothing else matters.
Regarding pressing buttons you misinterpreted my point. My point (I dednt elaborate Im afraid) is that we who despise and detest the AGW fraternity should concentrate upon that process of pressing buttons. We know we are right. We dont need others to be convinced, only to react to the AGW oppressors in the way we want.
The way forward is not with debate but cultural manipulation. This is the battleground where AGW groups have so far won and where they need to be contested.

DirkH….MAN thats SUCH a cool link. Margaret ffffffn Mead.
Her ENTIRE CAREER was built on a hoax (to which she was a credulous victim).
Re Brian Freeman, “Margaret Mead and Samoa”.
But theres a lesson in there (besides the obvious one about the crap that social science is).
Margaret Mead is STILL high on a pedestal, four decades after her lousy, shiitty crap “work” was thouroughly, totally, comprehensively taken apart, trampled over and weed upon.
Lesson: it doesnt matter if its pseudo-science, it can still dictate debate. Its ALL culture. EVERYTHING is culture. To follow up on my previous comments, sceptics need to stop worrying about the science, that battle is won, the need is to engage in some shrewd engagement with the attentive minority of the general populace.

Wamron says:
March 30, 2013 at 10:53 am
“DirkH….MAN thats SUCH a cool link. Margaret ffffffn Mead.
Her ENTIRE CAREER was built on a hoax (to which she was a credulous victim).”
Now you know what I think of the credibility of Lovelock and Schneider; given that not only Mead, but only the author of Ecoscience, John Holdren, was part of the cabal.

DirkH…..I was dismayed to discover that Mead was the wife of Gregory Bateson. I was amused to discover that like Bateson she was a good friend of M.H.Erickson. I have no desire to speak ill of the latter, for his many failings an insightful and ingenious man. But those “failings” were among the most succesfull examples of popular pseudo-science of the 20th Century. Bateson and Mead must have been a good combination.
Bateson, on the other hand, illustrates the other side of the same coin. His thoughts about the aetiology of schizophrenia were promising, may or may not have been valid, but were binned simply because they were not approved in the nascent feminist regime of the day.
So Mead and Erickson illustrate how pseudo-science can continue to mis-guide people in spite of their obvious failings. Whereas Bateson illustrates how a possibly scientifically testable idea can be censored because of the same cultural factors.
This goes back to my comments earlier. Once the science has been…er…”settled” …theres no point banging on about it. Policy will not change until the culture changes. Culture cannot be changed by science alone.

@ Wamron says: March 30, 2013 at 10:38 am
I think we are viewing this with slightly different emphasis’s or maybe focusing on different points in the process.
I agree that how “science” is constituted and its basic justification SHOULD allow for the verification you mentioned, to be, within its terms of reference, absolute. And observably so to an outsider. [I do not consider this to be unique to science in substance: it is an expression of the application of intelligence, in science formalized as a process.]
However many areas of science appear arcane to those not familiar with the language, context or intention. And much that appears comprises building with detail that in itself does not allow a judgement about the wider area of inquiry.
It is requisite on science and scientists themselves to “police” these things. Any uninvolved person has a limited capacity to do so. Not to do so by scientists is a failure of science itself.
This is what has occurred in CAGW. And all of contemporary scientific practice is implicated.
This should never have got beyond an interesting speculation. And indeed it remains a speculation but one with an ever diminishing possibility of being correct. And it is no longer interesting.
We are in complete agreement that CAGW is discredited as it has been proposed. This is a very simple proposition and based on the claims made by the proponents has been demonstrated to be invalid, at least to the 95% level (!), which renders it a curiosity at best.
It is completely unnecessary to apply “science” to reach this conclusion. It requires no technical, specialist, or expert understanding.
If someone claims to know something, anything at all, and on that basis says “this will happen” and it doesn’t, then they don’t know what they are talking about. Joe Blow doesn’t know what he is talking about if he says Mary will be at the supermarket in one hour and she isn’t.
If this happens once, then Joe was mistaken for whatever reason. If it happens again, then Joe is unreliable. Repeat, and Joe is a bullshit artist. This is “Climate Science”.
Anyone understands this immediately. They simply need to be made aware of it.
I take your implicit point that proponents of CAGW are a declared enemy, and that therefore all bets are off, and any method of combat is acceptable. If someone pulls a knife on you in the street, they forgo the right to claim considerations that apply to those who don’t.
However I very strongly disagree with the idea that any manipulation is necessary. Manipulation and deceit always ultimately degrade. Everything.
As can be seen in “Climate Change” scientifically, politically, culturally and personally. This is the defining characteristic of contemporary life across the board. And it is a cesspool.
If by manipulation you mean largely strategy, I agree. I also agree, as some of the above must show, that this is, in the broadest sense, cultural.
To achieve a complete repudiation by the public of CAGW it is only necessary for them to be able to see and judge the statements, claims, actions, and ultimately character, of the “Climate Community”.
To do that properly it is necessary to stop pretending that there is meaningful integrity in a gamut of “scientists” who are not scientists, “idealists” who are not idealists, and associated political and business interests who are in fact working towards their own interests.

a note on Lewandowsky’s incoherence, evident malice, and double-standards (cross posted with CA):
Since Lewandowsky is already on record (last Sept.) insisting that various bloggers should have perfect email records and recall for any unsolicited two-year old request(s) from his assistant Hanich, Lew has unwittingly set the bar very high for himself.
While the skeptic bloggers had no reason in 2010 to know the name Hanich (or even Lewandowsky), or to care about a spammy request from the equally obscure Univ. of Western Australia, Lewandowsky reviles and ridicules them for not instantly sorting out the long lost details two years later.
Yet, Lewandowsky and Cook, still cannot now after many more months, provide a precise, accurate accounting of the details of their own studies and email correspondence pertaining to such work.
This is incompetence of a peculiar kind, drowning in hypocrisy, malice, and ignorance. The Cook-Lewandowsky team can be proud!

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